 In the meantime, the Ukrainian National Assembly in Kiev claimed Bessarabia as part of Ukraine, and in response, the Moldavians asked for protection from the Petrograd provisional government.On , Constantin Mimi, the official Commissar of the Russian Provisional Government (of Alexander Kerenski) in Chişinău, gathered delegates of all major political, national, professional and administrative organizations to a "delegation" to protest and reject the pretensions of the "Ukrainian Central Rada" to annex Bessarabia.Protest notes were sent to the Government in Petrograd and to the "Ukrainian Rada" in Kiev.